PREFACH. 
In my official capacity as Curator of the Acad- 
emy of Natural Sciences I have been. frequently 
requested to prepare a small hand-book on the 
local fauna of Philadelphia and on the animal life 
of the much-frequented New Jersey coast. For 
a long time I hesitated, knowing what difficulties 
the preparation of a work intended to meet the 
requirements of the popular mind and of the more 
earnest searcher after nature’s truths would entail. 
But finally, yielding to the imputation that scien- 
tists, while asking much for themselves, are. too 
apt to disregard the claims of the scientifically- 
inclined public, I consented in part, and now pre-, 
sent to my readers the following pages as a result 
of my determination to assist in the cause of popu- 
lar instruction. For a work on the sea-shore fauna 
there has, doubtless, been considerable demand, 
and I can but hope that the present volume may 
in a measure fulfil the mission for which it is 
intended. 
The illustrations that accompany the text are in 
3 
